Easter comes early

It’s all about rabbits this week. Not the Easter ones, the Potter-Peter bouncy ones or the ones that prolifically produce more cute little bouncy ones. But the ones caught in headlights, the ones running away, the ones rushing down the rabbit hole, “I’m late, I”m late.”

Faced with the implications of turning the revised Curriculum from ‘what it might be’ to ‘what it might look like’, we are those cottontails, staring down those lamps and wishing we could vanish down the rabbit hole.

The Curriculum document is aspirational, playing the long game, fuelled by pedagogies rooted in socio-cultural, co-constructivist theory. There’s plenty to argue about but plenty with which to agree. Who wouldn’t want learners to have the opportunity to think for themselves, take a role in their own learning, be ready for the future of the future?

But with only one Teacher Only Day in two years, what are the teachers to do? Today’s first workshop with regional teachers has exposed the level of discussion, debate and general unpacking that is needed for us to be clear about what the different parts of this document will look like in schools, in resourcing, in classrooms, in planning, in students’ actions and thinking… The intention that schools make it in their own image is only an opportunity if the schools have the time to define their image.

A potential response? The rubric. The tick list. The expediency offered by the commercial materials that are no doubt being produced as I blog.